


shrine of flowers

by antagonists



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 11:22:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7435567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antagonists/pseuds/antagonists
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kneeling upon the ground in seiza, he bows low, a strangely shaped shadow over the golden floor. “Father, we’re home.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	shrine of flowers

**Author's Note:**

> listen.. i just love genji..., s O mU c h..

*

 

 

Over the traditional wooden pillars and thick paper, Hanamura casts a modern glow onto stone path and mighty bell. During the night, without neon signs and LEDs illuminating its glamour, Shimada Castle is but a humble, darkened story of the past. The only guards stand languid in their black suits and tread the ground sleepily. There is not much that can oppose the yakuza anymore.

 

“You are thinking too hard, brother,” Genji murmurs beside him, a shadow at night with his lights extinguished. In their native tongue, his words are smooth, comfortable. Hanzo finds that the words sound easier on his ears than English does, and they fall from his lips as naturally as the wind blows. “You need not continue for my sake.”

 

“You’re reminding me that you’re not dead,” Hanzo clarifies, in the same tongue. Next to him, Genji’s silence is thicker than the moonlight hidden behind the clouds. It is among the very few times they’ve walked their childhood paths together since Hanzo had left the castle.

 

Genji sighs in the same exasperated manner he’d done when he was younger. It is familiar, welcome, but also warped by the inorganic qualities to his voice. “Only the dead are honored, brother. What is your purpose of returning if I am standing next to you?”

 

The eldest brother turns to the side. He does his best to school his expressions into practiced ease, but he has never been able to hide his innermost thoughts from the spring flowers. Things are not as before where he could hide his emotions in the darkness—as of late, Genji has been able to read him no matter the circumstance. Perhaps he should be happy, even proud of this development.

 

And yet the guilt does not leave him.

 

“I wish to speak with Father,” Hanzo says.

 

The walk over castle ground is both nostalgic as it is unnerving. Hanzo wonders if Genji can feel the ground underfoot in the same way he used to, if he can recognize the muted colors of their past painted over the old wood. When they step onto the old tatami, Genji is the one to move first.

 

Kneeling upon the ground in seiza, he bows low, a strangely shaped shadow over the golden floor. “Father, we’re home.”

 

 

*

 

 

Sometimes, Hanzo dreams of the springs he’d watched through the castle windows. Blossom-watching had been one of his favorite activities, though Genji had always complained that sitting with Hanzo made him sleepy. The sakura are most beautiful in the spring, but he has found them to be bitter reminders, especially on colder nights when he is alone. In the month following their crossed blades, Hanzo hadn’t been able to look out to the countryside; the horizons would be blanketed in soft pink, mocking his sorrow, marking the moments he still regrets to this very day.

 

After they pray to their father, Hanzo and Genji walk through the castle gardens. Much of it is different, now, with plants new to their memories. As they step over delicate petal and through the falling blossom, though, Hanzo feels the tranquility he’d so missed. Although laden with bad dreams, the sakura do not seem so malicious now.

 

“They’ve renovated the gardens quite a bit,” Genji says lightly. Their mother’s favorite flowers have long since been replaced by sturdier perennials. Between two sakura trees, which had been one of Genji’s favorite nap locations, an unfamiliar stone path carves through the grass.

 

Hanzo frowns at this change. “They haven’t taken care of the castle as well as they should.”

 

“I suppose I’ll just have to find someplace else to nap.” Genji’s voice hints at a smile. “Mother never did approve of my rigorous sleeping schedule.”

 

Hanzo snorts. “Less of a schedule than an obsession.”

 

“Coming from someone who’d fall asleep in the dojo during a break,” Genji accuses. “Mother would have to practically drag you off to your room.”

 

“I never did that,” he says, denial his first reaction before he remembers that those memories are no more.

 

His brother laughs, breaking the uneasy silence settling over Hanzo’s heart. “Let’s walk to the pond, brother. I want to see if the koi are still there.”

 

As Genji passes through the gate of fluttering petals, mechanical feet light over stone, the clouds part to reveal the moon in the night sky. Hanzo closes his eyes at the bright gleam of metal at first, then sets his jaw and strides forward. His brother is here, walking with him, and it is infinitely better than reminiscing on the past by himself.

 

 

*

 

 

When they had been children, Genji would always try to catch the fish in the pond with his bare hands. These attempts had often ruined his new clothes, leading to three days of bedrest to recover from a cold. Their mother would task Hanzo with bringing hot broth to his whiny brother, telling him to make sure Genji didn’t sneak out and make his cold worse.

 

“Don’t remind me,” Genji groans, moving to cover his masked face out of habit with his hand. It’s a bit endearing, even with how things have changed. Neither of them mention how the action doesn’t do much. “Must you still tease me about that?”

 

Unharmed, the two koi swim slowly through the waters. They are no longer the size of small minnows, and Hanzo is more than relieved to see them unchanged and well. If anything, the water levels of the pond have risen from the recent heavy rains, making the reflection of the moon seem smaller than he remembers. Peacefully, the water swills around their immersed feet. They cannot feel the pond between their toes as they used to, but the gesture brings a feeling of warmth anyways.

 

Genji leans towards the pond, fingers wiggling at the white koi he’d childishly named. “Shiro, come here.”

 

Watching with bated breath, Hanzo wills the fish onward. It turns in hesitant, listless circles a few times before approaching Genji’s fingers to nibble. With a few more curious bites, the fish loses interest and swims away, but shows no fear. Hanzo releases his breath; before, Genji had never been able to have the fish approach him so easily, nor had he ever been so gentle with them.

 

“You’ll make him fat,” he says when he sees Genji pulling out a small pouch, probably filled with breadcrumbs. He still retains a few bad habits of his, and more of them seem to be coming back in their time within the castle walls. “You planned this, didn’t you.”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Genji replies, tossing in a handful of crumbs that the koi eagerly swim after. “You must be imagining things in your old age.”

 

“You killed your first koi by overfeeding it,” Hanzo reminds.

 

Genji nods sagely. “Shiro the First. I still remember where I buried him.”

 

“You cried for weeks.”

 

“Now, brother.” Defensive, Genji pulls one foot out to fling water at his brother’s leg. “I was a child. And Shiro the First was a very cute fish.”

 

Hanzo smiles, unbidden, and is almost surprised by how easily it comes to him. He hasn’t felt this relaxed in years, hasn’t been able to look at the speckled night sky during spring without remorse pressing at his eyelids. Sleeping under the stars would bring him dreams full of harsh breath and blood, memories of heavy metal in his hands and the stains upon scroll and wall. These thoughts still bubble forth from time to time, but he can bear them, at least, knowing that Genji still walks this earth, still sees the same sunrises and sunsets that he does.

 

“Brother,” Genji says, tender. “It’s about time the guards regained consciousness.”

 

He sighs, tugs at the sleeve of his kimono to adjust it as he stands. His shoulders feel lighter, and the air he breathes is crisp and invigorating, not unlike the cold riverwater they’d bathed in as children.

 

“We could knock them unconscious again,” he suggests, only half-jokingly.

 

They don’t, but Hanzo still stops by to say farewell to their father. Though he is less heavy-hearted, the night remains a somber memory, and he will wear it as proudly as he does the dragon on his flesh.

 

“We’ll be back, Father,” he says. Around them, sakura blossoms scatter, reflecting moonlight and the shadow in their steps.

 

 

*


End file.
